On the heels of Apple's announcement of the biggest quarter in company history, two of the iPhone maker's rivals -- Nokia and Nintendo -- have reported significant losses.

Nokia's Windows Phones off to a slow start

Nokia Oyj saw a 73 percent drop in fourth-quarter earnings, the company reported on Thursday. While Apple saw sales of 37 million iPhones in the holiday quarter, Nokia sold just 1 million of its new "Lumia" Windows Phones since it debuted in mid-November, according to Reuters.

Going forward, the picture isn't much better for Nokia, as the company expects its phone business to be around break-even in the first quarter of calendar 2012. That's well below what analysts expected the company to project.

Still, the Finnish handset maker's fourth-quarter earnings per share of 0.06 euro was better than the market expected. Analysts generally predicted Nokia would report earnings per share of around 0.04 euro.

Nokia was aided in the quarter by a $250 million payment from Microsoft, as part of the agreement between the two companies to release handsets based on the Windows Phone platform. Nokia announced nearly a year ago that it would ditch its proprietary Symbian platform and instead feature Windows Phone on its high-end smartphones going forward.

Reacting to Nokia's earnings, analysts said that the company needs to initiate a strong push for its smartphones running Windows Phone if it hopes to push Microsoft's platform beyond the 1 percent to 2 percent share it currently holds.

Nokia's Lumia 800 (left) and Lumia 710 are its first Windows Phones.

Nintendo posts first annual loss in history

Japanese game maker Nintendo revealed on Thursday it expects to post its first full-year loss at an operating level in company history. Nintendo publicly revealed that it expects an annual operating loss of 45 billion yen, or $575 million U.S., which is significantly greater than analyst expectations of a 4.2 billion yen loss.

Nintendo also cut annual sales forecasts for its once-dominant Nintendo Wii console from 12 million to 10 million. In addition, sales of the Nintendo 3DS portable game console were slashed from 16 million to 14 million.

"We had higher expectations for the year-end season, but failed to meet them," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata said to reports in Osaka, Japan.

Nintendo drastically cut the price of the 3DS by $80 last year only months after it was released. Now available for $169.99 in the U.S., the console faces significant pressure from smartphones like Apple's iPhone, along with the iPod touch.

Sales of the 3DS did pick up considerably after Nintendo cut the price and began to release blockbuster titles like "Mario Kart 7" and "Super Mario 3D Land." But the Wii has been overtaken by rivals like Microsoft's Xbox 360, and Nintendo must wait for its successor, the Wii U, to be released later this year.

The Wii U will be an HDTV-based console that features a controller with a 6.2-inch touchscreen. The controller immediately drew comparisons to the iPad when it was announced, but unlike the pairing of an iPad and Apple TV, in which the iPad sends content to the Apple TV, Nintendo's Wii U is powered by a traditional console capable of 1080P graphics that will be required to stream content to the tablet controller.

While I understand fully just how much money Nintendo would rake in by making all of their games available for iOS (and that means ALL of them. Anything would be fair game), they'll never do it. And that's all right.

So you got the 4S because of the 3DS' bad touchscreen controls. Got it.

That actually doesn't make any sense. A dedicated gaming console's controls trump that a touchscreen device for games. And I'll also take a stylus for using my thumbs for games as well, provided it allows for far greater accuracy without obscuring the screen nearly as much.

Going forward, the picture isn't much better for Nokia, as the company expects its phone business to be around break-even in the first quarter of calendar 2012. That's well below what analysts expected the company to project.

Nokia and WP7 are great HW and OS yet are too late to market to be making any in-roads yet RiM expects to release BB 10 at the end of 2012? If Nokia and MS can't do it I don't think RiM can do it 1.5 years later than them. At least with Nokia and MS there are very deep pockets they can use to maintain and advance their HW and OS, respectively, until there is an opening. I can't say the same thing about RiM. On top of that, MS has an SDK that is good while I don't think there is anything good for their QNX-based OS at this time.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

This has more to do with the Wii then the actual 3ds. The 3ds sold 15million units this year. Thats a lot for one year (for nintendo anyway).

nintendos problem is the fact that the wii was so underpowered when it released. Nintendo has to come out with the WII U . Also the american currency vs japanese does not help either since nintendo exports a lot of its devices to america so with the yen being worth more then the dollar it gets expensive.

PS why is the nintendo states here to begin with. This has nothing to do with apple.

Nintendo's failure to adapt in the mobile space is biting them in the ass. If they had thought ahead, they'd have focused on software, maybe even pushing out their own smartphone with a focus on gaming, but the latter is iffy. They should've worked on a more-or-less universal controller accessory for Android/iPhones as touchscreens suck horridly for a lot of games. I can't bloody play Marathon on that crummy touchscreen interface. They could build a framework for it and release it free, then develop a number of their own titles to tie into it and help push sales of the controller and other developers could well follow suit. If they played their cards right, they could be getting a nice, fat chunk of the mobile gaming space themselves, but they're stuck in a dying market and a dying business model. Pity.

You know, the Apple TV we're waiting for with Siri and that gesture remote control we read about the other day is going to render Nintendo obsolete, especially with Microsoft's Kinect already out there. The Wii U may be outdated before it even hits the production line.

Nintendo's failure to adapt in the mobile space is biting them in the ass

It's way too early for this. The 3DS, since the price drop, has been out-performing the original DS at the same point in time. What many sites, including AI, are failing to report is that the loss is mostly due to the strong yen. Nintendo lost 50 billion yen on the foreign exchange alone.

The problem isn't Nintendo; it's the shitty US dollar. If Apple were based out of Japan, their quarterly profits would have looked FAR different.

The dollar has nothing to do with the high Yen at this point in time. It is entirely a Japanese problem.

Japan is a country with dire economic problems. Its in a serious recession. It has an aging population and a shrinking workforce. The country is in massive debt and already has some of the lowest interest rates possible, which discourages domestic investment. There is also a lot of Japanese investment abroad.

Another reason for the strong yen in recent years is whats known as the carry trade. This is when investors buy currencies with low interest rates and use them to buy currencies with high interest rates. They then get the money from the difference. Many global investors bought yen years ago to make money this way. But when recession hit the world economy, this became risky and they paid it back. In order to pay the money back, they needed to buy yen, and up it goes.

The yen has also been experiencing deflation. Japan exports more than it imports. As long as the economy is based more on exports, the currency stays strong. Import-based economies have weaker currencies.

It's way too early for this. The 3DS, since the price drop, has been out-performing the original DS at the same point in time. What many sites, including AI, are failing to report is that the loss is mostly due to the strong yen. Nintendo lost 50 billion yen on the foreign exchange alone.

The problem isn't Nintendo; it's the shitty US dollar. If Apple were based out of Japan, their quarterly profits would have looked FAR different.

That's cute, but no.

Fun there in fantasy land?
You claim physical controls trump touch screen controls every time, but that's your opinion only and reality speaks differently.
The loss has nothing to do with the shitty dollar, as the projections for dollar devaluation have been well known, accurate, and accounted for. Nintendo was expected to report 4 billion yen in loss. Not 45. Get it now? It was a really bad year for them.

The story continues month after month, and people like you constantly fly out of the woodwork to say, "Its not that bad!" out of pure wishful thinking for Nintendo and all console makers, because for whatever reason you like terrible screens and plastic styli...i don't care, thats your preference. I emphasize, your preference. The market's preference is entirely different, and every single month of sales for at least the last 3.5 - 4 years has proven it.

In less than 3 years Nintendo will either run out of cash, or license products to iOS. That's by 2015. Remember that, for when it happens.

Am I the only one who thinks that the market for Windows Phone devices will overlap more with Android than iOS? Really, it just seems less likely (an unscientific observation, granted) that people accidentally get an iPhone, rather than the people who get Android--and now Windows--devices pitched to them. Let them compete against each other, I say.

Lumia must be Finnish for Ugly. You would think if they were trying to make a come back against Apple they would make a little more effort in the design department. The Lumia 900 looks like a sad attempt to bring back the iPod Nano as a touch screen phone, and despite Microsofts effort at a clean interface, Nokia had to clutter it up with, logos, buttons, dark openings and frame lines.

The greatest thing Google ever did was to have the Android logo designed well. That is a smoking logo. It is the only tech logo out there that can compete with Apple's logo. If they had demanded that all android phones have the Android logo on the back as the apple is used on the iPhone, they might have had a serious shot at creating a strong brand. Instead they slap the ugly Google logo on some phones, the phone's maker has to have their logo right on the front, then the service provide can't stand it and has to have their logo on the front also. That alone makes all Android phones look crappy.

This is how the market equalizes. Previous to the actual numbers, those same analysts projections had inflated the stock above what it was worth. Stock price takes into account all available information, including predictions.

This has more to do with the Wii then the actual 3ds. The 3ds sold 15million units this year. Thats a lot for one year (for nintendo anyway).

nintendos problem is the fact that the wii was so underpowered when it released. Nintendo has to come out with the WII U . Also the american currency vs japanese does not help either since nintendo exports a lot of its devices to america so with the yen being worth more then the dollar it gets expensive.

PS why is the nintendo states here to begin with. This has nothing to do with apple.

Not really. The Wii was adequately powered when it came out - it was just a new paradigm in gaming. Instead of arguing about megapixels per second or frames per second, they introduced a new way of playing games.

The real problem is that they introduced it over 5 years ago without any changes (except for the unexciting Family Edition last year). Five years is an eternity in that market.

A secondary problem is that they never learned to handle manufacturing. Even 2 years ago (more than 3 years after the Wii was introduced), the stores still were not able to get them in stock before Christmas - even though Nintendo had had years to work out supply logistics.

"I'm way over my head when it comes to technical issues like this"Gatorguy 5/31/13

Nokia and WP7 are great HW and OS yet are too late to market to be making any in-roads yet RiM expects to release BB 10 at the end of 2012? If Nokia and MS can't do it I don't think RiM can do it 1.5 years later than them. At least with Nokia and MS there are very deep pockets they can use to maintain and advance their HW and OS, respectively, until there is an opening. I can't say the same thing about RiM. On top of that, MS has an SDK that is good while I don't think there is anything good for their QNX-based OS at this time.

I agree with all of that.

I would add that I'm very surprised that the Nokia WP7 phones didn't do a little better. 1 million units since November is poor and I don't see any silver lining there. I didn't expect sales to light the world on fire but I did think that they would be better than that, at least 3 million units over the holiday season. Even that would only have been 10% of iPhone sales.

Not really. The Wii was adequately powered when it came out - it was just a new paradigm in gaming. Instead of arguing about megapixels per second or frames per second, they introduced a new way of playing games.

The real problem is that they introduced it over 5 years ago without any changes (except for the unexciting Family Edition last year). Five years is an eternity in that market.

A secondary problem is that they never learned to handle manufacturing. Even 2 years ago (more than 3 years after the Wii was introduced), the stores still were not able to get them in stock before Christmas - even though Nintendo had had years to work out supply logistics.

And Apple has? Their products are often sold out, so what's their excuse?

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example" Mark Twain"Just because something is deemed the law doesn't make it just" - SolipsismX

Lumia must be Finnish for Ugly. You would think if they were trying to make a come back against Apple they would make a little more effort in the design department. The Lumia 900 looks like a sad attempt to bring back the iPod Nano as a touch screen phone, and despite Microsofts effort at a clean interface, Nokia had to clutter it up with, logos, buttons, dark openings and frame lines.

...

It's funny, I don't think the non-iPod-Nano one (uh, clever model number eludes me and I'm not really interested enough to go look... ) is so bad looking at all (well, it does look like a white iPhone mostly...), but you couldn't get me to use that horizontal-scrolling nightmare UI.

Who thought that cutting everything off horizontally is hip? For that matter, do they understand that vertical scrolling is easier to parse? Can you imagine if ever web page just did cut-off horizontal pages and scrolling? The Windows 8 beta, whatever-they're-copy-is-called App Store, etc. all are deeply into it too - just nasty. Take their App Store graphic they leaked, scale it to screen height, then scroll through it if you haven't - just incredibly irritating.

My problem is not with Tallest Skil, per se, but with the potential weight that words posted by one who has the title "Global Moderator" may carry.

Our opinions may differ, but I feel that if one wishes to post, then post. If one wishes to moderate the forum, do so.

So let me get this straight... A long time, frequent contributor to this forum gets asked to become a unpaid moderator whose sole purpose is to remove spam in order to make this forum more pleasant for the rest of us and you want to stop them posting here, only moderate the spam? Does none of that strike you as completely crazy to except from an, again, unpaid member who is doing a service for us by cleaning up the spam? Why would they stick around or accept the position if being a mod meant he couldn't post anymore?

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

Lumia must be Finnish for Ugly. You would think if they were trying to make a come back against Apple they would make a little more effort in the design department. The Lumia 900 looks like a sad attempt to bring back the iPod Nano as a touch screen phone, and despite Microsofts effort at a clean interface, Nokia had to clutter it up with, logos, buttons, dark openings and frame lines.

Can you explain yourself more, both phones shown in the article have a single Nokia written on them, how is this any different than Apple having their logo on the iPhone? And as for buttons, doesn't MS dictate what buttons you have on a WP7 device?

I would add that I'm very surprised that the Nokia WP7 phones didn't do a little better. 1 million units since November is poor and I don't see any silver lining there. I didn't expect sales to light the world on fire but I did think that they would be better than that, at least 3 million units over the holiday season. Even that would only have been 10% of iPhone sales.

That's pretty grim news for MS and Nokia.

It doesn't look good at all. Usually products of that caliber will find a market. I don't have any high expectations of Win8 on tablets. I think they should have adopted their WP7 for tablets and had them out soon after the iPad was released. I think MS could have gotten a hold of that market back in 2010.

This bot has been removed from circulation due to a malfunctioning morality chip.

It has everything to do with Apple. Apple is the reason for this loss.

No. No. No.

Nintendo's loss has NOTHING to do with Apple and their products. Nintendo lost it's money due to the underperforming Wii, a dedicated home console gaming platform. Though Apple dabbles in this arena with AirPlay it's not a focus of theirs or their users. Nintendo's losses in this area have nothing to do with competition from Apple and everything to do with not releasing enough quality games.

The Nintendo 3DS outsold the first year sales of the original DS in only eight months. It may have had a slow start, but it's rebounded quickly and not a source of loss for the company.

Apple Insider should stop trying create stories out of thin air. They need to report facts and analyze fairly and throughly. Re-distributing theories with no basis in fact only harms.

Every other moderator has thousands of posts. I don't see you complaining about them.

As for the Lumia/WP7:

It makes me happy that consumers can in some cases reward effort with success. A lot of other things in life suggest otherwise.

As for Nintendo, I think this is just a blip. They made a mistake with the 3DS. They really should have made something like the Vita but closer to an iPod Touch in size and power with all their software franchises and an online store.

The Wii U should pick things back up again around Christmas this year if it launches with a good array of titles as it should push past the PS3 and 360 in performance and precede their next efforts by a year or 3, which likely won't show noticeable improvements.

Fun there in fantasy land?
You claim physical controls trump touch screen controls every time, but that's your opinion only and reality speaks differently.
The loss has nothing to do with the shitty dollar, as the projections for dollar devaluation have been well known, accurate, and accounted for. Nintendo was expected to report 4 billion yen in loss. Not 45. Get it now? It was a really bad year for them.

The story continues month after month, and people like you constantly fly out of the woodwork to say, "Its not that bad!" out of pure wishful thinking for Nintendo and all console makers, because for whatever reason you like terrible screens and plastic styli...i don't care, thats your preference. I emphasize, your preference. The market's preference is entirely different, and every single month of sales for at least the last 3.5 - 4 years has proven it.

In less than 3 years Nintendo will either run out of cash, or license products to iOS. That's by 2015. Remember that, for when it happens.

Nintendo is by far my favorite gaming company. Their AAA games are second to none, and just like Apple, they constantly surprise and innovate, and everyone else apes their innovations. They've performed far better than both Sony and Microsoft in the console space, and are destroying Sony in the portable space. The only reason that Microsoft and Sony are even players is because they have their other divisions to absorb all the bleeding from their gaming divisions, and can continually pump money into them while operating at a loss. Nintendo has been the only one so far with a sustainable model and a profitable gaming division- since it's all they do. I hope they're able to survive, and I have a feeling they will.